Fog

The words were written in pencil on a piece of paper placed on top of the body.

Whatever about another portentious Scandanavian fictional detection opening, the weather today made you expect some nasty business to be lurking in the fog. Just thirty metre visibility as cold and humid air sat, glued to the hill. I know the distance because I paced it after the dog leapt out in front of an oncoming car that had no lights and was traveling so fast that it emerged from the white curtain in the same instant it was upon us. We heard it coming yet had no sense of its direction, the noise scattered off stony walls that bound either side of the road. The dog spun on the lead and helicopter like, ended up at my feet as I caught a sheepish wave of apology or gratitude from the mindless driver. Not that any of us haven't done the same in the mundanity of our own lives.

The bluebells on Roches Hill are fading into the growing bracken, now fully 18 inches taller in just two weeks. The blue tinge beneath the fog was eerie yet somehow painterly, if that's a word.

Gus, the dog and I traipsed down to the beach and spent about 30 minutes walking in the rounded beach rubble before heading back up into the fog of low lying cloud. We passed the old and tiny Church of St. Leinin (often written like the Russian who was no saint), in use for 800 years until the seventeenth century when it fell into a disrepair that infers some sense of antiquity and grace to Killiney - Cill Iníon Léinin - church of the daughters of Leinin.

It was a long day for me that started in west London initially with a drive to Redhill in Surrey to collect bread from our favorite Chalk Hills Bakery, then past East Grinstead to collect the car with its new windscreen, disks and tyres from Munich Legends. We then drove from Crowborough to Holyhead arriving one hour late having lost an hour and a half behind some bad 'incidents' including a vehicle fire on the M6 near Stoke. So we missed the Jonathan Swift fast ferry at 1715 and had to rebook onto the Ulysses at 240 am. We found a hotel room (the kind that supplies both room key and TV remote at reception), grabbing a Sri Lankan influenced dinner at Mala's, all in Holyhead, before catching three hours sleep. Then, out the fire escape by prior arrangement since all doors are locked at 1am, we emerged to drive past a brace of ambulances arriving at a drunken melee where folk were still fighting on the streets. We were the last to board the ferry not because we were late but because there were so few cars on this the biggest ferry in Europe. Eventually, we emerged bleary eyed in Dublin at 615. An easy crossing made awkward only by the hour.

My knees were sore after the 440 mile drive, I was short sleep but thought it a good idea to walk in a vague simulation of the Three Peaks which happens this day week. This is my last blog until then and I'm sure it will be a few days after the event when I compose and publish the last blog of all. Custard pies and air the ticket raffle are the last events before we set off. An amazing milestone of £13,000 was reached this week and who knows, maybe we'll reach £15,000 with donations from the readers of this blog, if there are any.

It was James Ellroy who wrote about shooting up by TV light in American Tabloid.

Dandelion

Tom and the Perfectionist sit in the designated waiting area of Gate 23, Terminal two, Lester B. Pearson International airport.

Among the more odd books I've read recently, Tom and the Perfectionist will be obscure unless you've heard about it. Whereas I suspect many have read The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger that opened in the cool marble library that smelled of carpet cleaner back in the Proxigee post in late March.

Today was a short walk to Killiney beach with the dog. Clear and photogenic, I used the iPhone to capture dandelions while Gus was off harrying other walkers by the shore. I was trapped by a problem with my car that prevented a drive to the mountains. There were lots of other things to do so the walk was only five km.

42

She arrived early in March, the plane landing at Katunayake airport before dawn.

I woke after the spring forward loss of one hour to the church bells ringing. I counted 123456789 all the way up to 42 bells, a marathon distance - a sign. I looked out and saw the magpie tree - nine birds at nearly nine o'clock - another sign. Downstairs, I enjoyed toasted sourdough bread with peanut butter, an orange and strong coffee while looking out on perfect weather. Too many signs to resist.

I imagined three goals (Ireland 2 Macedonia 1 perhaps):  get to sea level thrice, see several of the more interesting local houses for sale and walk at least 16 km. Let's go.

Up to the Killiney obelisk, cold in the haze. Across to Dalkey quarry - lots of climbers - some mountain rescue practice - down The Metals - women walking dogs and babies. I passed another magpie tree with five casing the area. On to Hillside where a brace of goldfinches perched in the bare branched budding shrubs - and down to Newtownsmith and several Sandycove kayaks, scuba divers, swimmers, more joggers and cyclists - to Joyce's Tower and the Forty Foot. Some religious fervour in a front garden (a photo I put onto yesterday's post). Across to Bulloch Harbour, empty, the boats being anti-fouled on the hard stand. Up to Dalkey, past several flavours of Christian church, filling and filled for Sunday services. Back up to Telegraph Hill via what we called Millionaire's Row in the 1970s. And down by the Cat's Ladder, on down Vico Road via Nerano to Coliemore were more divers had come ashore. And then back up to the obelisk by Vico where the sunny morning had enticed joggers, strollers, coffee walkers and even some kung fu fighters in practice that looked like dancers in among the pine tree. A drink listening to Norwegian cyclists, a snack quickly taken because of the chill on sweaty clothes and warming fast back down to Killiney Beach where after a quick inspection of the sea, I turned and trudged back up the alleys to the top of Roches Hill from where it was a very easy walk home. About 17 1/2 km on three ascents (500 vertical m) chosen to test my stamina, which is not great but surely improving.

So many thoughts and memories - the multicoloured heather - the elegant and well-dressed young woman in black with the two cute puppies - the Weimaraner that wanted to "play" with the Scottie by picking it up - the views into Jaguared front gardens exposed for now by the plant cull after the deep freeze of our last winter - the not yet fully disgraced banker walking en famille - the chalk inscriptions that led to Bono's house - the cherry blossom - yet more cherry blossom - the feeling that this is a beautiful place to be, underlined by returning to Sky News still reporting various forms of unrest in Libya and Japan with which anarchist riots in London and Portuguese insolvency cannot compete.

It was Hilary Mantel who opened Booker winning Wolf Hall with "So now get up". 

Proxigee

Clare: The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble.

I repeated, roughly, the hill and beach walks of the last few weekends, with the emphasis on flights of steps. I covered about 9 km alone (with about 200 m of vertical steps) and then another 3 km with my companion from yesterday. I started of in early sunrise haze and finished in mid-morning full sun, at about 15C; the first time I felt Spring had arrived

Insecure Vandals 

Which was interesting to me because I was watching a few people swim at White Rock and I wondered if they knew the sea was probably the coldest it ever gets, the water temperature in the Irish Sea lagging the air by about three months. The guy in the wet suit with the boogie board seemed unconcerned but another guy in ambitious Bahama shorts went blue after about four minutes, fled from the sea and stood shivering hard in his towel.

I also wondered if the swimmers realised they were swimming in an extreme Proxigean Spring  Tide, the tide rising about almost a meter higher than normal because of the coincidence of the full moon syzygy and a lunar perigee. I hardly saw the full moon last night, hidden as it was behind the clouds that delivered the rain to Landsowne Road that helped complete the rout of the English rugby team, providing our new stadium with its first great memory. The tidal thing won't concern and may even mystify those who live in Kansas, Kazakhstan or Kenadsa and think the sea is a waste of space. The tide was so high that I had to climb over the jutting rocks that separate Killiney and White Rock Beaches, where the granite is in direct contact with the country rock, now schists.

Contact

Today's dog walkers on the beach filed past, ever polite. A nod of recognition or even words of sympathy (rarely apology) when the snarling or barking dog harasses you, as two did today. Perhaps the Latin words like equinox, perigee or the vandalised beach buildings were suggestive but I kept thinking of the walkers as Romans (not quite troops), walking in their straight lines and armed with (tennis ball) slings or launchers that looked like short swords drawn and ready for action. The allusion fails when I note most had earbuds in place to avoid actually hearing natural sounds of breaking waves and birds.


So which opening line was from Pompeii by Robert Harris?

Oystercatchers

On the morning of January 6, two hours before dawn, a man named Robert Clinch rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

I felt like a bit like that opening line this morning before my coffee. It was a beautiful day in Dublin and I went for two walks. The first was about four km and it was a typical early morning in south County Dublin in that it was clear, the time before the cloud blows in. It was also cold, perhaps zero centigrade, the pavement littered with delicate pink, frost-knocked blossoms. Snowdon was clearly visible across the Irish Sea from Killiney Hill, a reminder of Ireland's unearned rugby defeat in Cardiff yesterday. Gus, mindlessly enthusiastic, ran out in front of a car, signalling an overdue return to the leash and home, ending the first walk.

The second walk was about 11 kilometres, roughly the same as the last one on Friday, with lots of steps. I took to collecting photos of postboxes (in progress) and listening in passing to snatches of other walkers' conversations, coincidentally all involved money - the two fast walking 40s something women: 'we'll have to sell the house in Oporto' - the stressed 50's something parents: 'he can't eat our food if he has enough money for wine' - the nervous 20s something son and unflappable father figure: 'really, that should be enough to see it through' - and the 30s something mother to hers, hidden in a pile of coats on the beach: 'you don't have to give them all lobster sandwiches!' as their toddler toddled oblivious in the sand and I wondered if the sense of 'all' was crowd or purity.

Then I got a Facebook post from New York post about food poisoning. It beeped on arrival to my iPhone as I was looking at a group of about ten  oystercatchers walking in front of me (causing ironic linking thoughts about poison and oysters). It took the birds quite some time to decide I was too close. So I photo'd the birds with the phone as they took off, edited the picture as best I could in mid-morning glare on my phone and then uploaded it, hoping to bring cheer to the miserable. All while walking. 

It's time to start acknowledging the writers of the first lines, perhaps making this first revelation easy. Which opening line was from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka?

Beach

They left the aqueduct two hours before dawn, climbing by moonlight into the hills overlooking the port - six men in single file, the engineer leading.

This opening line marks the start of the 13th of these walks. No links to anything, just another book I read recently.

Today's walk can be seen in Google Maps, here if you want. Most of my walks are discoverable in the same place. It was drizzling most of the way, cold enough for gloves for the first hour and thereafter, wet, particularly so once I fell in the sea. After climbing across the granite/schist contact that separates White Rock and Killiney strands, I was walking in the shoals of wave washed glacial till that cover Killiney Beach. I chose the walk to have lots of different surfaces to help train my legs; steep steps, grass, heavy pebble beach and some climbing over huge boulders. Anyway, I needed to catch my breath and decided to take a picture at the water's edge. The undertow sucked the pebbles from under my feet. I had the iPhone in photo mode. Over and in I went, the phone too. I grabbed the phone as a small wave broke over us and it still worked. My rain gear kept most of the water out though my pockets and shoes did fill up. It felt strange after spending an hour watching TV coverage of today's tsunami in Japan.

I walked as far as the Shanganagh River, turning back at the mariners marker I now call Aaronisbent after the griffito in today's photo. I covered 10 km in about 150 minutes and it was tiring because I have not been walking enough. There's barely two months before the Scottish Three Peaks so I need to redouble my training and my quest for sponsorship, now at 63% of our initial £3000 goal, which we had hoped to beat by raising closer to £10,000.

Inuksuk

Inuksuk

He always shot up by TV light.

This first line googles too easily. Not that it has any bearing on the inuksuk I made or the beach walk or anything other than it was the next book in the pile. I can't develop a link.

It was beautiful before 8 am this morning on Killiney Beach. The sun had just risen, the tide was receding into a bay as pond calm as you are ever likely to see the Irish Sea. It was hard not to think about the national election on Friday. The vote counting is not final but there has been a long overdue sea-change in Irish politics. Whether this matters is purely conjecture at this point. In a country that is now become the world's example of why governance is critical, why the role of treasury must be protected from ephemeral party politics and why voter apathy is corruptive, the interests represented by the newly elected are not clear. Sadly, as their individual abilities are equally opaque, their coalition combination may tend to vapidity. The task that lies before the new government is Herculean. Sovereignty is at stake. The chances of success are small if the annual interest on sovereign debt to be paid remains at 80% of the annual tax take.

Loop

Shopfront Shopfronts

The boy's name was Santiago.

 

Another novel and easy to find. Read this if fiction confuses you.

 

Instead of reading, I was walking around Killiney Hill again. Just over 5 km on a bright day after a night of more rain. A Sunday morning of few joggers, even fewer walkers. We noticed that the street drains were clogged by the winter grit, the trees had been scalped after snow damage and the roadside bracken recently trimmed to promote renewal after the icy winter. Architectural features that are normally unseen behind branch and leaf, exposed for us to marvel and envy.

 

By the way, the photos posted on this blog are nearly all taken with my iPhone. Today's photo is from a chemist's shopfront in Dalkey.

Stroll

When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis.

I saw the movie of this novel a few weeks ago on a plane after I'd read the book several months before. I found both disturbing and yet the movie was made much more so by being on a seat back display in full view of other travellers.

 

We walked around Killiney Hill and went on to Dalkey Village for coffee. The coffee shop had provided its across-the-road annex to a photographer and a wood turner, both of whom had some really nice work on show and of course, for sale.